Existing comment:
First Map of the States of Maryland and Delaware, and Washington, D.C.
Completed in 1794 and published the following year, Dennis Griffith's map is a prime example of eighteenth-century commercial cartography. It is the earliest printed map to show the states of Maryland, the seventh state admitted to the Union on April 28, 1788, and Delaware the first state admitted on December 7, 1787. For members of the original thirteen colonies, as both Delaware and Maryland were, order of statehood was determined by when the state ratified the Constitution. Shown in the inset is an early map of the City of Washington or the "Federal Territory," now known as Washington, D.C.
Some question whether the map was the result of an "Actual Survey," as its title indicates, and believe that Griffith drew on information found on existing maps of the time. For example, the inset map showing the City of Washington is most certainly based on Andrew Ellicott's 1792 city plan. Ellicott, who served for a brief period under Pierre L'Enfant, a Frenchman who drafted the initial plan of the city in 1791, was tasked with completing and engraving the first city plan in 1792, after L'Enfant departed from the project. |